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I hope this question is relevant enough to the thread to ask here: what language did the people of Turkey, and by extension most of the Turkic-speaking countrie

I hope this question is relevant enough to the thread to ask here: what language did the people of Turkey, and by extension most of the Turkic-speaking countries, speak before the Mongolian invasion? Are there traces of that former language in their current one? I know that there's definitely plenty of Arabic and Persian words still in use, and since Ataturk there's been a lot of French/other latin languages added as well.

chr1 10y ago
Most of the teritory of turkey was a part of Byzantine empire with Greek being the main language there. Large part on the east was Armenia, and there were many other nations with their own languages, Assyrians, Lazi, Kurds, Yezidis. Turkey successfully got rid of majority of non-muslim nations and their languages by 1920s and works on getting rid of Kurdish since then.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
wtbob 10y ago
> I hope this question is relevant enough to the thread to ask here: what language did the people of Turkey, and by extension most of the Turkic-speaking countries, speak before the Mongolian invasion? The people of Anatolia spoke Greek before the Turks invaded.
- gkya 10y ago
  And some other languages before Alexander the temporarily Great. This is not a nice way at all to get at linguistics/history questions.
- mda 10y ago
  You mean, Greek among others and many other languages before Greek, right?
gkya 10y ago
Most of the french loanwords are from 19th century when the french culture was a big influence for the ottoman elite.
jcranmer 10y ago
How far back do you want to go? In the Bronze Age, Anatolia was mostly under the domain of the Hittites, which spoke an Anatolian branch of Indo-European. Following their collapse, Anatolia was inhabited by various other Indo-European peoples, such as Phrygians, Greeks, and Persians. It was the expansion of the Seljuk Turks that brought Turkish-speakers into Anatolia, and they became the dominant people over the next few centuries. The Mongols never really entered Anatolia--the Seljuks were vassals of the Ilkhanate, but Mongolian-speaking peoples didn't migrate into the region like the Turkic-speaking peoples did. Further afield, the Central Asian steppes were apparently first settled by Indo-European languages of various branches (Iranian and Tocharian). Alexander the Great's conquest led to the establishment of Greek as a major upper-class language throughout Bactria although it doesn't appear to have transfused down to local populations. Turkic nomads started filtering in and pushing out/assimilating the extant Indo-European speakers in the 400s or so (long before the Mongol Empire). As for traces of loanwords, yes, many Turkic languages incorporated Indo-European (particularly Iranian/Persian languages) of extant speakers into their language, much like how French incorporated Germanic elements into its language.
- e15ctr0n 10y ago
  You seem to have a tremendous grasp on the history of Central Asia, especially during the Middle Ages, a subject that I personally consider very obscure. May I ask if this is a personal interest of yours, given that most of your working hours are devoted to open source software?
  - jcranmer 10y ago
    Actually, my grasp isn't that good. Rather, I have an interest in history, particularly that outside of those areas that pass for world history in most schools (i.e., Europe), and I did alight on a course that talked about the steppe nomads over the past 6000 years or so.

chr1 10y ago

Most of the teritory of turkey was a part of Byzantine empire with Greek being the main language there. Large part on the east was Armenia, and there were many other nations with their own languages, Assyrians, Lazi, Kurds, Yezidis. Turkey successfully got rid of majority of non-muslim nations and their languages by 1920s and works on getting rid of Kurdish since then.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

wtbob 10y ago

> I hope this question is relevant enough to the thread to ask here: what language did the people of Turkey, and by extension most of the Turkic-speaking countries, speak before the Mongolian invasion? The people of Anatolia spoke Greek before the Turks invaded.

gkya 10y ago
And some other languages before Alexander the temporarily Great. This is not a nice way at all to get at linguistics/history questions.
mda 10y ago
You mean, Greek among others and many other languages before Greek, right?

gkya 10y ago

Most of the french loanwords are from 19th century when the french culture was a big influence for the ottoman elite.

jcranmer 10y ago

How far back do you want to go? In the Bronze Age, Anatolia was mostly under the domain of the Hittites, which spoke an Anatolian branch of Indo-European. Following their collapse, Anatolia was inhabited by various other Indo-European peoples, such as Phrygians, Greeks, and Persians. It was the expansion of the Seljuk Turks that brought Turkish-speakers into Anatolia, and they became the dominant people over the next few centuries. The Mongols never really entered Anatolia--the Seljuks were vassals of the Ilkhanate, but Mongolian-speaking peoples didn't migrate into the region like the Turkic-speaking peoples did. Further afield, the Central Asian steppes were apparently first settled by Indo-European languages of various branches (Iranian and Tocharian). Alexander the Great's conquest led to the establishment of Greek as a major upper-class language throughout Bactria although it doesn't appear to have transfused down to local populations. Turkic nomads started filtering in and pushing out/assimilating the extant Indo-European speakers in the 400s or so (long before the Mongol Empire). As for traces of loanwords, yes, many Turkic languages incorporated Indo-European (particularly Iranian/Persian languages) of extant speakers into their language, much like how French incorporated Germanic elements into its language.

e15ctr0n 10y ago
You seem to have a tremendous grasp on the history of Central Asia, especially during the Middle Ages, a subject that I personally consider very obscure. May I ask if this is a personal interest of yours, given that most of your working hours are devoted to open source software?
- jcranmer 10y ago
  Actually, my grasp isn't that good. Rather, I have an interest in history, particularly that outside of those areas that pass for world history in most schools (i.e., Europe), and I did alight on a course that talked about the steppe nomads over the past 6000 years or so.